The center-right party Latvian Way, mainstay of the outgoing government, has decided to join the five center-right and right-wing parties of the National Bloc in forming a new coalition government after the September 30-October 1 elections. The coalition´s parties would command a total of only... MORE

Boris Yeltsin has signed a decree restructuring the system of state-run radio and television. Under the decree, the Ostankino TV and radio company is to be liquidated and all its assets transferred to Russian Public Television (ORT). The decree gives Russian Radio and TV, St.... MORE

Law enforcement officials have arrested Aleksandr Shirshov, chief of the health ministry's finance and planning department, and charged him with fraud and corruption. Shirshov is accused of embezzling money allotted for Chechnya, and of stealing ambulances. Health minister Eduard Nechaev claims that the fraud amounts... MORE

The chairman of the Duma´s committee for legislative and legal reform, Vladimir Isakov, says that the Duma´s majority partially accepts Boris Yeltsin´s concept of the formation of the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, because the alternative would be to live without an upper... MORE

The Duma voted October 6 by an overwhelming margin to deprive deputy Sergei Mavrodi, mastermind of the gigantic "MMM" pyramid scheme, of his mandate. Mavrodi won his parliamentary seat in a November 1994 by-election after the deputy who had held that seat was killed. In... MORE

Defense Minister Grachev and Defense Secretary Perry have agreed to reschedule joint US-Russian military exercises, which will now begin in Kansas on October 23. Last month, Russia suspended preparations for the exercise in reaction to NATO air strikes on Bosnian Serb positions. (4) The Russian... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin has accepted the "voluntary" resignation of acting Prosecutor General Aleksei Ilyushenko, and has replaced him with his first deputy Oleg Gaidanov. Presidential press secretary Sergei Medvedev recalled that Yeltsin had already publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with Ilyushenko's performance, and stressed that Gaidanov's... MORE

At the Duma´s October 6 session, only 248 deputies voted to override Boris Yeltsin´s September 14 veto against the Duma´s August 12 bill that would have terminated Russia´s compliance with international economic sanctions against rump Yugoslavia. Three hundred votes, or two thirds of the total,... MORE

Boris Yeltsin authorized by decree October 6 deliveries of Russian gas to Bosnia. Discussed with Bosnian prime minister Haris Silajdzic in Moscow during the preceding days, the step was initially presented by Moscow as a humanitarian measure to heat Sarajevo in the cold season. However,... MORE

Russia will complete construction of a nuclear power station in Cuba and to continue trading Russian oil for Cuban sugar, the Itar-Tass news agency reported Monday. Construction of the station, Cuba's first, was started by the Soviet Union but halted due to financial problems. The... MORE